


rainy season

by oceanfire



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Growing Up, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Pining, Self-Discovery, a lot of river and color metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26102947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceanfire/pseuds/oceanfire
Summary: Tooru’s heart has always been a river that carried him to the sea, dark stream blue heading off into grand ocean colors, but Iwaizumi, as he learns, is a piece of home wherever he goes.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	rainy season

**Author's Note:**

> this is, at its core, my love letter to oikawa tooru, so manga spoilers ahead!

When the storm finally fades away from the heart of Miyagi, Tooru steps outside for the first time in a week. 

He breathes in the damp air, empty now in its search for the next cloudburst, the atmosphere begging for fulfillment. The rain does not heed the town’s wish however, instead praising itself with a job well done as it shakes off the last of its drizzle, packing its bags, and heading on over to the next town to commandeer the next battle over the sun. 

It was awfully curious to have a sudden rainstorm just at the prologue of summer, but Tooru sums it up to the nature spirits he frequently hears from grandmothers during their superstitious conversations. He doesn’t think about it now, not when there are matters his heart has set onto that are more important. 

There is a haunted house right at the end of Tooru’s street — shadows lingering, windows too dusted to see through, creaky floorboards that play like music on a windy night. 

It sits right at the end of the road and at the beginnings of a small tree grove’s entrance, trapped between shadows and what little sunlight is allowed through. Some windows are boarded up, the tendrils of long forgotten vines sneaking up through the porch gaps. It hasn’t been the talk of the street in a long while, ghosts in the right place at the wrong time. 

The closest Tooru has ever gotten to it was his route to and from school, but he is never less than ten meters away. He isn’t exactly sure if the house really is haunted, but it must be, he concludes, because there is a hollowness in it that feels desperate to prove something, a foreshadowing of what no one else sees yet. A part of him itches to visit it just once, to see what it’s all about, but he hasn’t found anyone who’d venture willingly inside it with him, someone he’s comfortable enough dropping the brave face for when the fear crawls over him and dunks him in the water. 

It’s the biggest mystery on Tooru’s sidewalk, the closest truth hidden among the cluster of Tooru’s conspiracy theory documentaries and sci-fi movies. It just might be the only thing about his street he does not know. 

(There are also the new neighbors who had just moved in right next to Tooru’s house, cardboard boxes lining up outside the yard instead of the weeds that used to grow there, but he disregards this fact.)

So he steps outside his house now, and slowly makes his way towards the haunted house, and no one bothers him on the sidewalk as he locks eyes on his destination. Eyes set and hands firm, he is a boy with a purpose, six years of life against a building that died soon after forty. He keeps his eyes on the windows particularly, just in case something out of the ordinary were to appear and fade back into shadows once he blinks. 

“Why are you walking so slow?” 

Tooru jumps at the voice, broken out of his concentration. He whips his head towards the sound, and there he spots a boy his age. He wears a band-aid on his cheek, skin slightly darker than Tooru’s, and with brown hair as spiky as Tooru’s curls are hereditary. But most importantly, he carries a volleyball in his hands, bright yellow and blue against the muted colors of this first rainless morning. 

“Volleyball,” Tooru blurts in lieu of a proper greeting or answer. At the boy’s confused face, he points at the ball. “You play volleyball?” 

“Yeah, I just started learning how,” the boy says, eyebrows still knit together. “Wait, you didn’t answer my question.” 

“What position do you play?” Tooru asks. At the back of his mind, excitement wakes up after its week-long sleep, thrumming of new possibilities in a damp weather that makes up for lost time. 

“I like to spike,” the boy tells him. “That’s what I’ve been practicing most, anyway.” 

“Well, I want to be a setter!” Tooru says proudly. He’s been practicing a lot, especially as of late, and watching old volleyball tapes at home, and there is nothing else he wants to do except be a setter, to bring out the best in his spikers, even when waters run high on the brink of an overflow. “Hey!” Tooru exclaims. “We should play together!” 

“I don’t even know your name,” the boy says, but his eyes are bright with the same anticipation Tooru feels. 

“Oikawa Tooru,” he replies immediately. The haunted house stands behind him still, long forgotten to both time and the two boys who stand before it, a losing contender for attention. Where the house looks down on them with boarded windows, a voice calls now to look up — aim for the ball, for the sky. 

The boy mouths the name, realization flashing on his face as he looks up at Tooru. “You live right next to our house!” he says. “My mom talked about you.” 

_Right next to our house?_

“You’re the new neighbors?” Tooru asks. 

The boy nods. “I’m Iwaizumi Hajime.” 

“Well, Iwa-chan, do you want to play volleyball with me?” Tooru asks. “I know a place with a net!” 

“Iwa-chan?” 

“Yeah, it’ll be my nickname for you!” Tooru says. “Is...is that okay?” 

Iwaizumi just sighs, relenting. “Whatever. Just don’t make it a habit, it’s embarrassing,” he says.

“Come on, let’s go!” Tooru tells him, already beginning to walk towards a small playground that stands right around the corner, empty on most days, tucked between the shallow creek and hovered by dark leaves, where the sun does not catch until it is permitted in by wandering winds. There’s a volleyball net behind the monkeybars, set up by enthusiastic children who had long since grown out of their love for the sport. But Tooru is the one who uses it on most days now. 

“Wait, what were you doing over there in the first place?” Iwaizumi asks behind him. 

Tooru stops. “Oh, right! The haunted house!” He whirls around to look back at the house, which has not made a single move since he first turned away from it. One of the curtains flutters in a dance, an attempt at a wave

“Haunted?” Iwaizumi asks, confused. 

“Yeah! At least that’s what everyone says. I was gonna visit today, but then I met you.” 

Iwaizumi simply raises an eyebrow in return. “Wouldn’t that be trespassing?”

“But no one lives there!” Tooru says, frowning. 

“Yeah, and there’s probably no ghost that lives there either, stupid,” Iwaizumi tells him. 

“You’re so mean, Iwa-chan!” Tooru says, crossing his arms. What does he know? “ _Obviously_ , there’s a ghost. The house isn’t going to haunt itself.” 

Iwaizumi looks at him for a moment. “You’re kind of weird,” he states, ignoring Tooru’s sound of indignation, turning around on his heel. He continues, “But that’s okay. Come on, didn’t you say you wanted to play?” 

Tooru runs after him, settling himself beside the other boy as he leads them towards the playground. They walk in time with each other, a new rhythm he’ll never forget, and while the sun hasn’t come out of hiding behind the clouds, Tooru might just call it a good day. 

The playground is no less than rundown, dew still hanging onto the last tufts of grass underneath their shoes, shimmering and a reminder of what had passed other than time. The swing set stands withered to his left, blinding red metal a scorching touch under the heat of sunnier days. The monkey bars are a ways towards the back, with some handles missing and rusted down. A few years down the line, and Tooru wonders whether the playground would be called haunted too. 

Tooru looks at Iwaizumi to gauge his reaction, to hear a disgusted comment from the other boy, but there is none. Iwaizumi simply zones in on the volleyball net and makes his way to it, disregarding the worn path created by enthusiastic children repeatedly stomping over it ages past.

“Toss to me?” Iwaizumi says to him, preparing to jump as he waits for Tooru’s affirmation. He grips the ball loosely in his hands, and stands next to the net. 

He tosses, familiarity running through his fingertips of afternoons spent with the same continuous action, and Tooru’s almost certain that he had set it too high. But Iwaizumi hits the ball perfectly, and when he lands, he grins at Tooru, eyes bright as the freshest dewdrops. “That was so cool!” he says, amazement evident on his face. 

“Can we do another?” Tooru calls out from the other side of the next to retrieve the ball, excitement riding like a bird readying itself for its first flight. There’s something else that feels like dawning in his chest, but for now, he chooses to focus on his hands on the ball. 

“Only if we can do more after that,” Iwaizumi says back, and Tooru feels the clouds part for the first peek of the heavens in weeks. The blue is a welcoming sight, and he doesn’t know how he ever went so long without it. 

Tooru sets, Iwaizumi spikes. Somewhere, the river begins its journey to the sea. 

* * *

When Tooru goes home later that day, a smile on his face despite his skin now rubbed red and purple bruises beginning to form all over his arms, his mother looks at him curiously. “I thought you were just going to take a look at the house down the street?” 

“I met Iwa-chan today!” he just replies, taking a bite from his dinner. “We played volleyball together.” 

“Do you mean Iwaizumi-san’s son?” she asks him. When Tooru nods, she says, “I didn’t know he played.” 

“He does, and we're gonna be the best!” Tooru tells her, the claim etching it’s way into his heart, a promise of two but only known to one. 

“I’m glad you made a friend, Tooru,” she tells him fondly. She reaches out a hand and ruffles his hair, to which he whines and tries to pull away, but they both know it doesn’t bother him much. For anyone else to do it, though, would be a different story. “Now that the storm’s passed, you’ll be able to go out more.” 

Tooru doesn’t say anything, just remembers his new promise to himself, and wonders how long it will take to fulfill it, how long will it be until he gets to the ocean. 

* * *

The sun had bid its stubborn goodbye to the sky long ago when they finally make their way home. Even though it’s dark out with only the shine of weathered streetlights to light their way, all Tooru can focus on is the deep blue of the Kitagawa Daiichi jacket that hangs over his shoulders, heavier than when he had first gotten it. 

“When we get home, you better eat dinner right away,” Iwaizumi tells him, voice on the edge of a warning and footsteps heavy as they approach their street. 

“Yes, yes, I will,” Tooru replies mindlessly, face turned towards the road. He is yet to meet his best friend’s eyes since they left the school. 

“And try to go to sleep early tonight,” Iwaizumi says, a little exasperated. Tooru doesn’t do so much as twitch or give him any kind of reaction. “I can tell if you’re still awake, you know. Our windows are right across each other.” 

Tooru hums, kicking a stray pebble on the road. It doesn’t get too far. _Kinda like me_ , he muses, self-pity recurrent enough to become an instant thought, but he turns it away as soon as he realizes it. It’s hard, and he tries, and practice usually makes perfect, but so far, perfect hasn't been getting him anywhere. Especially not when there are geniuses out there who have always aimed for the sky, seeking the same grand glories that Tooru’s only glimpsed of, rushing water never fast enough in comparison to wings that beat the sun. It feels too much like he’s running out of time, and he simply can’t keep up. 

“Oikawa, I swear if you aren’t listening to me—” Iwaizumi starts. 

“I am, Iwa-chan, don’t worry,” Tooru cuts him off. He forces out a grin, “And besides, it’s kind of hard to tune you out when you’re being loud and nagging.” 

Iwaizumi only punches him in the shoulder in response. “I’m just trying to make sure you take care of yourself, since you seem to be doing such a poor job of it.” 

Pain throbs in Tooru’s arm, but it’s nothing compared to the familiar ache that calls from his left knee. “That hurt, Iwa-chan! And I can take care of myself!” 

“Then what was that all about, Oikawa?” Iwaizumi asks, patience clearly running thin. “I can’t keep watching you practice yourself to death!” 

Not for the first time, Iwaizumi had found him in the gym long past practice hours, right in the middle of a jump serve’s run-up. His knee had complained at him the entire time, but he paid it no heed as he worked the usual routine — run, jump, serve, repeat. He had lost track of time, the sun sinking deeper as shadows crawled out against weary gym lights, and Tooru doesn’t know if he ever would have stopped if Iwaizumi hadn’t shown up. 

But he needs to get better. Somehow, someday. He has to. Tooru needs to be the best, so that he can stand by Iwaizumi, so that he can stand on top of it all. To prove that he doesn’t need the wings Ushijima boasts of, that he’s fine right here with royal blue instead of menacing violet. To show that something good can come out of these endless practice hours, that it’s worth it all in the end. That muscle memory could eventually make up for the talent he was terribly certain he hadn’t been gifted with. 

“I’ll take better care of myself, alright?” Tooru says to him, and finally meets his eyes. Iwaizumi’s eyebrows are scrunched together, lips turned downward from the weight of all his worry, eyes flashing something fierce. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Of course I’m worried about you!” Iwaizumi snaps. “In case you forgot, we’re best friends!” He lifts his hands to reach out, but then decides against it, arms going back to hang limp by his sides, fists clenched. He says softer, “Oikawa, is this still about Kageyama? Because I told you—”

“I made a promise,” Tooru says, voice taut. “To myself, before. That we were going to be the best.” He swallows, eyes back down on the asphalt, grey even darker in the moonlight, “You’re my spiker, and if _I’m_ not good enough, then how are we ever gonna get there?” 

“That’s stupid,” is all Iwaizumi says after a moment.

“I really don’t need to hear—”

“Did what I say not get through to you the first time?” Iwaizumi ignites him. “You said _we_. Volleyball is a team sport. That means both of us. The whole team. We all get stronger together, and we _are_ stronger together.”

“It’s our last middle school tournament, Iwa-chan. I’m the captain, I’m supposed to lead all of you there,” Tooru says roughly, walking faster. 

“Yeah, you’re the captain, but don’t go shouldering it all on your own!” Iwaizumi says, loud against their audience of chirpy crickets and premature stars. He sighs, but never easily defeated, adds, “No one ever said you were doing this alone.”

They keep walking, Iwaizumi matching Tooru’s pace no matter how fast he tries to go or how avoidant he is in such a conversation. Iwaizumi always catches up, never once losing in this metaphorical race only Tooru is aware of. He wonders if there is somewhere he will go that Iwaizumi will not follow. A matter of time and flowing waves against the sturdiest stone. 

They finally make it to Tooru’s house, and Tooru can barely see Iwaizumi’s face in the shadow of faint living room lights from the window. He turns around, facing his best friend, “I get that, okay? But I still need to be better if we’re going to defeat Shiratorizawa.” 

“Stupid, you’re already a great player,” Iwaizumi tells him, firm but his tone is softer, truth unbidden as a rock rippling it’s way through the water. “You’re an amazing setter.” 

“Not amazing enough, apparently,” Tooru replies. He wants to go inside the house now and just collapse on his bed, but Iwaizumi is holding him still and steady in flickering waves, like he’s trying to slow this terminal velocity Tooru has set himself on. 

“Listen,” Iwaizumi says. “Get this into your head, alright? I get that you want to get better, we _all_ do. But overworking will get you nowhere.” He adds after a beat, “It’s impossible to always feel like the best, but that’s what the team is for. And don’t I always pick up your slack, anyway?” 

Tooru lets out a small laugh. “You do, but you always complain about it.” 

“Then we’ll just flow, alright? There won’t be any rush unless you realize that we all deal with this together.” 

“And if I don’t, you’ll be there to punch me at a moment’s notice?” Tooru asks with a hint of amusement, a barely there presence much like the haunted house a few paces away. 

Iwaizumi grins for real, its first appearance for the night. The streetlights barely spare them any brightness, but for all of Tooru’s amazement with matters beyond this earth, he doesn’t need the stars. Iwaizumi’s presence is a lighthouse, always guiding him home even when it strains his eyes with the abruptness of it. “Exactly.”

“Go home, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, tearing away his gaze. “It’s late.” 

“And whose fault is that exactly?” Iwaizumi asks wryly, and takes a step backward to the direction of his own house. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” 

Tooru allows himself a small smile. “Like always.” 

* * *

When the sun is bright in the sky again and the bell rings signaling lunch break the following day, Iwaizumi silently hands him a packet of milk bread as soon as he enters Tooru’s classroom. 

He says nothing, does not even acknowledge his own action as he takes out his own meal for the day. 

“Thank you,” Tooru says, and hopes that Iwaizumi knows that it isn’t just for the food. 

* * *

“Now that I think about it, I don’t think dark blue was ever really your color,” Iwaizumi tells him on the way home during middle school’s final months. 

“How rude, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa says, hand on his chest in fake offense. “I think I look good in every color. Except orange, maybe.”

Last month, they lost against Shiratorizawa. His deep blue team shirt now hangs in his closet, a chapter that had ended the same time the ball had hit Tooru’s side of the court, with no one close enough to retrieve it. It weighs dense in his heart, an attempt to dam a rushing river, but not enough to stop him from moving on. There will be more years to come, more chances to take. This is still volleyball. 

“Let’s just hope the Aoba Johsai’s jerseys suit us more, huh?” Iwaizumi teases, but his eyes are twinkling even more than the stars that have only begun to shine. 

“Wait,” Tooru stops walking. “You’re...you’re going there, too? You’re coming with me?” 

“You make it sound like I’m following you,” Iwaizumi grumbles. It could be just the imprint of the sunset still bright behind Tooru’s eyelids, but Iwaizumi’s ears are painted the faintest brush of pink in embarrassment. 

“Iwa-chan!” Tooru exclaims, before reaching out and hugging his best friend tightly. Iwaizumi doesn’t even stagger in surprise, his hold as firm as it's always been. “We’re gonna be on the same team again! I’m gonna be the setter and you’ll be the ace!” 

“Get off me,” Iwaizumi says, but the force of his push is light. Tooru lets go, but he doesn’t move away, mind reeling as he rearranges his future with Iwaizumi by his side. He doesn’t know if he could ever imagine one without him. “And you don’t know that yet, we’ll probably have to fight to even become starting players.” 

“No, we’re going to be amazing, I just know it!” Tooru says, smiling wide. He had known for a long time now that he’d be going to Aoba Johsai for high school, but it seems Iwaizumi hadn’t made his choice until recently. 

Iwaizumi sighs. “You are impossible to deal with.” 

“And yet here you are,” Tooru replies. He pokes Iwaizumi’s cheek, retracting his hand before Iwaizumi can swat it away. 

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says, slow and sure as the sun’s descent, “here I am.” He looks wondrous like this, with the afterglow of the sunset as his backdrop, pink hues mingling with the moon’s darker tones, the stars only beginning the sun’s encore. There is a blooming in Tooru’s heart, in his lungs, in his chest, but it isn’t any harder for him to relish the rise and fall of his breath. Around him, with this new fact set in stone, it finally feels like time has slowed down, even just for this moment. 

With a matching grin, Iwaizumi speaks again, “Let’s make one hell of a team.” 

* * *

The next week, Tooru falls in love with his best friend, Iwaizumi Hajime. 

It doesn’t surprise him when it feels like a new blue taking shape all around, the perfect set and spike done hundreds of times over. A thrill even volleyball couldn’t recreate. So Tooru deals with this earth shatter, and decides to take whatever comes next. 

(He sets the ball, Iwaizumi jumps right in time to spike it like a heart soaring, a resounding slam echoing all throughout the gym, and they grin at each other. Clockwork familiarity, an old tale that they never tire of.) 

The river, new in its second beginning, finally turns its steady pace, and does not hurry in its certainty. 

* * *

“I’m counting on all of you,” Tooru says to his teammates. Matsukawa leans with an elbow on Hanamaki’s shoulder, Yahaba and Watari stand at the edge of their group but never any less determined, and Iwaizumi is, as the sun rises, at the center of them all — the setter’s pillar, the team’s ace. They all stare back at Tooru, eyes fiery and stances ready as his words hang heavy on them all, an utterance they won’t forget. 

Today, they wear their away jerseys, bright aquamarine as promised cleared out by the white lines that fall down their sides. It’s a stark contrast from his old jersey colors, just as Iwaizumi had once commented years ago, but it fits him better in more ways than the old one had, a skin he’s finally grown into. It’s a dye he’s come to grow fond of, one that reminds him that days can get brighter. 

It’s the first match of Spring Interhigh Qualifiers, and Tooru has done plenty more than hope to make sure they perform at their best today, video tapes on his bedside table and overtired eyes held together by glasses he rarely uses. There is still a long way to go, but Tooru has never been one to only take things halfway. He wears the captain’s jersey now, and not once has he looked back to exhausted nights in a smaller gym. He isn’t starting now. 

(Still, he catches himself overworking sometimes — losing track as the hour hand slips further down on the clock, serve after serve, volleyball tapes in the stead of dream-filled nights, the ache of his knee as familiar as his best friend’s shoulder next to his on the walk home. But Iwaizumi is there to knock some sense into him, and quite literally more often than not.) 

Tooru steps on court with the school banner blazing behind him, a reminder that he is who wears the crown now; he has a whole team that will help him protect it. The crowd cheers from behind him as he walks forward to line up, and he gives them a small wave. 

“Come on, stop waving and let’s line up,” Iwaizumi says behind him, ready to guard. 

“Are you nervous, Iwa-chan?” Tooru asks him with a crooked smile on his face. The gym feels stuffy and hot, an air that's familiarized itself within his lungs with every counting match, but he knows that it won’t be a problem once the game starts, when the only thing that will matter is where the ball is, how he can get their spikers to score, and where Iwaizumi will be. 

The last, he tells himself, is because his best friend is the ace. Tooru has always been aware of where Iwaizumi is, and something tells him he always will be, a pinpoint on his heart’s map, the rock that stays even as the water goes, even when their roads diverge. It’s almost as easy as breathing, as natural as the storm that had passed itself over Miyagi right before they met, like the rain came with a blessing of familiarity all along. 

“No,” is all Iwaizumi says in reply. “Our team is strong.” 

“I’ll be sending a lot of tosses your way then, since you’re so confident,” Tooru tells him, settling into his corner of the court. He keeps his stance relaxed and free, tries not to let the sound of the crowd above cover up the dam that’s ready to overflow the second the referee blows into his whistle. 

“I’d be pissed if you didn’t,” Iwaizumi calls back from across their side, a charged grin on his lips. Tooru’s heart leaps at the sight of his best friend so determined, so steady in this quest — not for perfection, not the same one Tooru seems to have stumbled on — but for a valiance that conquers, a quiet that seethes even in hope’s trembling. Aoba Johsai colors suits him as well as it does Tooru, the world on his shoulders as a grace and not a burden. 

Even when he remembers the moment they had met, Tooru feels like he’s known Iwaizumi forever. And maybe he has, when he thinks about it, as it is the same way he has known stubbornness and hope and everything in between. It’s the same way he’s known love. 

Tooru just grins back at Iwaizumi, an unspoken affirmation of promises long ago. They both know that Tooru will toss to him during the match, undoubtedly and inevitably, a choice that speaks beyond necessity, a river’s destination. 

The whistle blows, and his pulse starts a restlessness under his skin. It doesn’t stop until he’s back at home, and he tells himself it’s from the adrenaline and not from his hand brushing with Iwaizumi’s own on the way home. 

* * *

“Have you told him yet?” 

Tooru stills at the question as he sets his bag down on the floor, filled with volleyball equipment and smelling too distinctly of salonpas. It’s just the beginning of a Monday evening, which means he had just come from the town center to help Takeru and the other children on volleyball. Iwaizumi had even dropped by earlier, and the sight of him trying to be gentle with children had left his stomach feeling fuzzy and warm. 

(Although, Iwaizumi had punched him as soon as he had been caught staring. That had gotten rid of the feeling fast enough for him to focus on helping one child learn how to set properly.) 

Now, his mother stands just behind the kitchen counter, staring at him with tired eyes and a kind smile. 

“No, I haven’t,” Tooru sighs. He walks up to her and eyes the brochures on the table. One boasts of the Argentina National Team, a sight that has Tooru dizzy at the mere notion, the hammering of a future that looms too closely. Another is colored sky blue and white, just a little off from Aoba Johsai’s own colors. _Club Athletico San Juan_ , it reads, and he traces the lettering lightly with his finger. There are more brochures and flyers scattered all over the table, but none of them stand as equally important to him as the first two. 

“Everyone else seems to know already, though,” Tooru says to her. Hanamaki and Matsukawa had found out when they overheard him speaking to the guidance counselor. He had made them promise not to mention it to Iwaizumi, just not yet, and they had agreed. Later on that day, there had already been whispers following him coming from Kunimi and Kindaichi, along with the rest of the younger members, but none of them were from Iwaizumi, so he knows he’s still in the clear. 

For now, at least. 

Tooru’s been gearing to head into Argentina for years now, a dream hidden from the rest of the world’s knowledge just in case it could be taken away too soon by some unforeseen circumstance. It’s been a plan in the making ever since that fateful day when he had learned of Jose Blanco — Tooru had latched onto the idea and never let go, not even when his knee had almost torn it up. It’s something he should have told Iwaizumi by now, especially when the other boy might know Tooru better than he knows himself, but he can’t bring himself to say it out loud in fear for what it would mean for both of them. 

“You’re going to have to tell him soon,” his mother chides, but there’s no real pressure. Tooru feels it anyway. “Don’t you think he ought to know by now?” 

“I know, it’s just—” Tooru starts, but closes his mouth as he sits down by the kitchen table. “I haven’t found the right time.” 

“Dear, I don’t think there ever will be a right time if you keep on waiting for one,” she says. She continues to cut vegetables for dinner, eyes on the task before her, and Tooru knows that she will call him to help her soon enough. “You just have to get up and go do it.” 

But what will it mean, for Tooru to be in Argentina and Iwaizumi in California for college, ten thousand kilometers away from each other? Unlike the situation in high school, Iwaizumi had announced his plans for sports medicine months ago, and Tooru has had more than enough time to reconcile himself with it. There is a sinking feeling in his heart as deep as the gap between them will be wide, but he bears it. When he sees Iwaizumi, eyes bright with wonder as he reads Takashi Utsui’s sports medicine books over and over, his hand on Tooru’s shoulder as he accompanies him to check-ups for his knee, trying fingers as he wraps Tooru’s knee brace just the way it's instructed, Tooru’s chest swells, and he will keep this hurt to himself. He will keep it the same way he has loved.

Iwaizumi, as always, has laid down the groundwork. All Tooru must do now is follow through. 

“You know,” his mother says over the rhythmic chop of a knife onto the board, “Hajime-kun isn’t someone you ever have to say goodbye to.” 

“But he just might be the most important person I have to tell,” Tooru says with a tired smile. 

“That still doesn’t mean you’re saying goodbye,” she points out, voice clear as the knife she wields in her hands.

Tooru just sighs, rubbing his hand over his face as he gets up and heads towards the stairs. “I’ll think about it.” 

“Come down when you’re done showering, I could use some extra hands for dinner,” she tells him, just as he had expected. 

“Sure!” Tooru calls back down, already halfway up into his room. Once he opens the door though, he dives headfirst under the covers and groans. 

He really doesn’t want to tell Iwaizumi, even though everything is screaming at him to do so. Once he’s spoken the words, there will be no taking it back, a future set in two different time zones, two separate continents, after years spent on the same playground and on the same team. Tooru can’t imagine how it would be, without Iwaizumi to punch him after every stupid comment, to pick him up after every fall, and for Tooru to do the same. 

Long before Tooru’s had any colors to match with a jersey, he’s had Iwaizumi. There has been a time in Tooru’s life where Iwaizumi didn’t exist, but not a single minute before then that had mattered. To step into a second where he isn’t by Tooru’s side is a line he hasn’t dared to even think of crossing until now, an edge he doesn’t want to stand on. 

It completely sucks, to put it frankly, derailing him to the point of worry and dread, of friendships falling apart, of missed calls and unread text messages, to say something and not have Iwaizumi there to hear it. Iwaizumi is his best friend. He has always seen Tooru for what he is, and he has stayed. No matter the color, no matter the rush of the water. 

And that, Tooru thinks, might be just why he needs to tell him, before he finally waterfalls. 

If there is anyone who is to know about the greatest thing to happen next in Tooru’s life, it is the person who has been there for all of it, who has seen him proudly wear the captain’s crown but has also befriended the little boy in search of a haunted house’s ghost, and has chosen both. Because Iwaizumi wasn’t someone Tooru ever needed to say goodbye to. No matter how far apart they would be, their hearts would cross the distance. 

* * *

“Iwa-chan, what do you think of Argentina?” 

“I think,” and there’s a pause, “no matter where you go, we’ll end up meeting again.” 

“You think so?” 

“How else are we supposed to be the best if not together? Wasn’t that the promise?” 

* * *

“You have your passport?”

“Yes.”

“Your papers?”

“Yes.” 

“Knee pads?”

“The ones you just bought me, yes.” 

“Phone?”

“Of course.” 

“Sunblock?”

“Why would I need sunblock?” 

“You can never be too prepared. How about money?”

“Iwa-chan, don’t you think you’re worrying too much?” 

Iwaizumi just stares at Tooru, his question still hanging over them in wait, much like everyone else who sits by them on the benches, listening for their flight to be called. An announcement passes overhead, but Tooru tunes it out as soon as he realizes it is not applicable to him. 

Tooru sighs. “Yes, I have money. I’m not that stupid, you know.” 

Iwaizumi frowns at him, “I’m just making sure, alright? Remember that one time you got lost in Tokyo during training camp? You could get into all sorts of trouble out there and I won’t—” 

Tooru knows what’s going on. “I’m going to miss you, too,” he says. 

Iwaizumi simply stands still, hands at his sides. His fists clench, once, twice, shoulders rising and falling with every forced slow exhale. Tooru knows what Iwaizumi is doing, knows it by the lilting and the inflections, understands that this is Iwaizumi simply holding over what is left on the edge, awaiting a goodbye to an era that simply dreams of memory. If Tooru were to focus on the trembling of his own hands, he knows that it would only lead to his own unraveling. 

“You dumbass,” Iwaizumi mutters and Tooru is only about to react to the insult when his best friend pulls him into a hug, arms around his shoulders, head the last puzzle piece next to his neck, and Tooru doesn’t hesitate bringing his own arms around him, a reflex as swift as his sets. The hole in his chest is widening now, the doorway to an attic where he is to lay the memories behind him. Iwaizumi’s touch warms his skin, and Tooru doesn’t know how he will be left to deal with the cold once this is over and he is halfway across the world. 

“You really want that to be one of the last things you ever say to me?” Tooru tries to go for a teasing tone, but it quivers at the last syllable. At the remark, Iwaizumi lets out a small huff of laughter and a feeling he can’t quite place but understands. Tooru wants to smile and cry at the same time, but his body must decide on the latter as a tear traitorously falls down his face. Iwaizumi wipes at the tears on Tooru’s face with his thumbs, a practiced motion. 

“Don’t start crying now, they won’t let you through the gates if you look ugly,” Iwaizumi tells him, pulling away back enough for Tooru to see his face, but still close enough for his eyes to be the center of all his attention, the stars closest to his heart. 

“You’re still so mean to me,” Tooru says, but he’s smiling even as his eyes sting. He tries not to think about how this is going to be the first time he won’t be able to hear Iwaizumi’s voice in person for more than two weeks since they first met. 

(Once, Tooru’s family had taken a short trip to Tokyo and Iwaizumi couldn’t come along. Tooru had complained rather childishly and embarrassingly the entire way there, but he stands by it. If Iwaizumi had seen the aquarium with him, the trip would have been so much more fun, he _swore_ it.) 

“Hey,” Iwaizumi says, taking a hold of Tooru’s wrists, bringing them back down. “Take care of yourself, alright?” 

And that, the reminder, is what finally breaks him. 

Iwaizumi has always made sure to look after Tooru, ever since they had become friends, from picking him up to make sure he isnt late for school, from sleepovers and restless mornings with minds filled to the brim of science fiction books and conspiracy theories, from learning how to play volleyball properly together, to walking him home after school practice to make sure they both eat well, to Godzilla movie marathons to pay Iwaizumi back in kind, to bandages and knee pads over bones that ache too quietly. Iwaizumi always, _always,_ takes care of Tooru, especially when he was still learning how to do it himself. 

Tooru may be the river on the quest for the ocean, but it is Iwaizumi, the rocks, the familiar carved grooves and dirt sediments, that keeps him on the right path. 

But the river has its eyes set on the ocean now, and the rocks cannot follow. 

It is what breaks Tooru, heart cutting into his skin as he bleeds memories, those five words, because Iwaizumi, as steady as the most careful foundation, might just be trying to put all the worry he has for Tooru, all the habitual care and concern, into this one moment of sleepy airport announcements and sluggish passengers, before it is taken away from him. 

The tears don’t stop coming, flowing freely onto his face and staining his jacket, blue cloth woven even darker now than it had before, and Tooru is probably making the most mortifying sounds as he tries to keep it together. He reaches for Iwaizumi once more, and wraps his arms around him. 

“Hey, what did I just say?” Iwaizumi tells him, surprise evident in his voice, but there is no bite, there has never been any bite. Tooru just continues sobbing, and he hears his parents finally arrive behind them bringing last-minute snacks, but they keep their distance. 

“You’ll call, okay?” Tooru forces out. “Iwa-chan, I know you don’t like calls, but you need to—” _because I don’t know how I could ever go a day without you._

“I’ll call, I’ll call, don’t worry,” Iwaizumi reassures him, a hand threading through Tooru’s hair. “Even when it’s for the stupidest reasons. Exactly what you do with texts.” 

“My texts are not stupid!” Tooru says, indignant but sniffling. It was important for him to send Iwaizumi a photo of a small succulent he saw yesterday, claiming it looked just like his best friend. 

“Sure, they’re not,” Iwaizumi says. “But just promise me you’ll take care of yourself? That’s all I’m asking.”

Tooru pulls back to see Iwaizumi’s face, memorizes the way his eyes glow brighter than any lighting this airport could possibly offer, mouth turned upwards in a gentle smile only Tooru is allowed to see, the faintest of freckles dotting his cheeks like the ones that trail up his back from too many summers spent outside. He will miss Iwaizumi — this he knows — and he was prepared for that, but he’s already missing him a great deal right now. 

“Of course, I will,” Tooru says lightly, a small smile gracing his face. He probably looks like a mess right now, face flushed with tears and words he still cannot say, even if they might be the most important. “I had someone important to me teach me how.” 

There are tears now in Iwaizumi’s eyes, welling up in the corners before they give out. It’s a stark contrast from the way Tooru cries, tears silent in their gentle descent over the garbled mess Tooru always becomes, standing strong despite it all. He’s the foundation to Tooru’s bloom, and it only makes sense that their tears would follow the same routine. 

An announcement rings through the airport once more, and this time, it’s for Tooru. He inhales, steeling himself, and slowly pulls away from the hold of Iwaizumi’s arms. 

“Text me as soon as you get there, yeah?” Iwaizumi says. 

“So now my texts don’t bother you?” Tooru raises an eyebrow, but the smile on his face falters a bit. 

Iwaizumi shrugs. “They’ve never bothered me.” 

Tooru wants to hug him again, but his flight is called, a last announcement much like the whistle of an experienced referee, and his mother steps at his side. She fusses over him once more, the only way a mother could, and smiles at him, sad but proud. 

“You ready for this?” she whispers as she kisses his forehead. 

“Yeah, I think so,” he says, and it’s true. Even if he has to account all that he has to give up, a heart breaking over who he will miss the most. 

Tooru grips the handle on his luggage tightly, walking over to the line where the other passengers shadow against, and gives one last look at Iwaizumi, who had come with him for as far as he could. 

“This is it,” he just says. There are another three words he does not say. 

“I’ll miss you too, by the way,” Iwaizumi says. There is a glint in his eye, an unknown emotion that Tooru knows isn’t just because of the tears, which is weird because Tooru is a prideful person, but he’s always been proudest at the fact that he can always tell what Iwaizumi is thinking. Now that he can’t at the last moment leaves him slightly off-balance, a shifting he wasn’t ready for. 

“Don’t get too soft while I’m gone,” Tooru says instead, diverts from what he cannot understand. “What will Kyoutani think of you if he sees you all sappy like this?” 

Iwaizumi doesn’t take the bait, however, and just says softly, “See you around, Tooru.” 

Tooru just nods, waving at him one last time as he continues forward, hoping that Iwaizumi can hear what he cannot bring himself to say. Iwaizumi disappears from his view, but the sound of his last words linger still, just like everything else he had brought Tooru. 

He hadn’t asked Tooru to stay, understands that the hurt of staying — Miyagi’s golden boy was always meant to stretch out his roots for grander heights — has always been much greater than the fear of leaving. But Iwaizumi hadn’t said goodbye either, so Tooru keeps that comfort with him. 

When the plane takes off no less than an hour later, the sky paints itself the faintest gray among the blue, familiarity its canvas. But Tooru simply leans back on his chair, and waits for the sun to shine again like it always does. 

* * *

As it turns out, Iwaizumi was right about the sunblock. Tooru’s shoulders burn with each heatwave that finds its way on the beach, waves glistening as they resume their daily trip to the sand and back to where they belong, a current that’s come for miles only for humility to surge them home. He watches the tide run itself out every few seconds, water rushing to nip at his toes before retreating. 

It isn’t Argentina where he stands on now, but Brazil. And it just might be the closest he’s ever been to the ocean. 

Granted, Tooru has fallen on the sand face-first more times than what should normally be for someone who’s been playing volleyball for close to fifteen years now. Beach volleyball is new, hazy as the sand clouds around his jumps, the familiarity of his movements challenged by every turn of the wind. To have every skill he’s honed easily shaken by the ground underneath him is absolutely terrifying, but it’s fun. And as he’s learned, that is what matters most.

(Earlier, after a failed spike, no longer close to the first time, Tooru had stumbled backwards as his legs gave out, vision of the makeshift court replaced by rising sand from the impact. Hinata had laughed at him, clutching at his stomach, chaotic but the most hearty thing he’s heard ever since he had left Miyagi, so bright and sounding too much like he’s releasing something else along with it, that Tooru found himself laughing along. 

Hinata holds out a hand out for him to grab, still giggling. Tooru grabs it and says, “Shut up, chibi-chan. You aren’t any better.” 

“Yeah, but you’re the _Grand King,_ ” Hinata says. 

Tooru smiles. “I haven’t been called that in a while.”)

It wasn’t long before Tooru had started to use the familiarity — whether from the comfort of having someone he knows from Japan next to him in court or from the realization that this is _still_ volleyball, he doesn’t know — to ground himself in the sand, make a foundation of his own. It reminds him fondly of Iwaizumi, an ache in his heart as he notes how large his side of the court looks, when there aren’t five other people to connect with, when there isn’t an ace he’s known all his life. 

“Why’d you leave Japan?” Hinata asks beside him. For all the excitement and adrenaline he exudes in court, attention-grabbing in a way his opponent will never forget, Hinata can be quiet when he wishes to be. Stripped raw by course sand and gleaming beach sun, he looks calmer, as if the sunburn on his shoulders had promised him a lesson in waiting. 

“I made a promise to someone important,” Tooru just says. The brightness of the sun here could not be any more different than Miyagi after a storm. 

“What kind of promise?” Hinata asks. 

Tooru doesn’t look at him, keeps his eyes on the sea boundary, where shallow light blue meets dark ocean deep. “To be the best.” 

“Hm,” Hinata just says, thoughtful. “That’s kind of what I did too.” 

Tooru doesn’t think of a reply before Hinata is crouching down on the sand, dragging his finger and writing something, willing the sand to move with the slightest touch. _1,095 wins_ , it reads, before the water pushes forward once more and washes away the characters. It might mean something, Tooru thinks, to write out reasons in the sand only for them to be washed away before fully understanding them. He just doesn’t know what. 

“Your promise,” Hinata says as he gets up again. “Was that to Iwaizumi-san?” 

Tooru snaps his head in Hinata’s direction, eyes wide. “How did you know?” 

Hinata shrugs. “Just a guess.” 

It is silent for a while, with the waves being the only thing that permeates between the two of them, crashing into shore as the sun readies itself for its own goodbye to the sun. 

“The tide always comes back,” Hinata comments out of the blue. 

Tooru turns his head to him, confused. “What?” 

There’s a small smile on Hinata’s lips, tracing faint as the wind on his skin. He points at their feet, where the water touches them and floats back away gently. “Just like me and Kageyama. We’re separated now, but I know we’ll be back together soon.” Hinata takes a breath, and Tooru wonders if he’ll ever tire of the air’s perpetual graze of salt. He adds, “I think you and Iwaizumi-san are the same, too.” 

“What makes you say that?” Tooru asks, raising an eyebrow. 

Hinata looks slightly confused. “You’re partners, aren’t you?” 

A fist bump under a dim street light, a challenge and a promise in one. “Yeah, we are,” Tooru says. 

“Well, that settles it,” Hinata says with finality, as if his logic doesn’t need to make sense to anyone but himself, sounding more determined than ever, and Tooru realizes that while Hinata still lacks in height, nothing about him is small anymore. He isn’t the boy Tooru once defeated, but he isn’t the one Tooru had lost against either.

Three years is a long time. A lot has changed.

He’s spoken to Iwaizumi every once in a while, and they both make sure to call each other at least twice a month, but like Hinata, the Tooru that Iwaizumi knows both is and isn’t the same. 

What does Iwaizumi see now, when he looks at Tooru through a blurry video call in the middle of the night? What shade of blue stands out the most — the boy of gray clouds just on the precipice of a blue sky, midnight blue jerseys hanging in closets closed with tears, or the sheen aquamarine of a lost glinting banner’s crown? What might Iwaizumi see, when Tooru dons this new blue hue, unfamiliar and distant, a jersey Iwaizumi does not own as well? 

And what will Tooru see, when Iwaizumi has changed just as much as he has? 

“You look like you miss him a lot,” Hinata tells him later in the night, while they clean up after a volleyball game. The beach is a lot emptier now, waves quieter as they retreat into the low tide by the moon’s commands. 

There is only one person Tooru could ever miss like this, so he does not wonder how Hinata knows. “That obvious, huh?” 

“Not really,” Hinata says. “I just think I get it.” He dusts off the sand on his shorts and settles beside Tooru on the path towards the main road. “You should call him.” 

“Cause we’re partners?” Tooru says, in all forms of sarcasm but without the heart.

“Yeah! Now you’re getting it!” Hinata says happily. “And you’ve been best friends since you were young, right? I bet he misses you just as much.” 

Tooru sighs, “I’ll think about it.” It had been a few weeks since they had spoken last, but Iwaizumi had been busy with final exams and presentations, so their call had been quite short. Tooru had sent him several annoying good luck stickers through text soon afterwards. 

Hinata bids his goodbye, but not before making Tooru promise that they’d play again tomorrow. Tooru takes a look at the beach once more, tide consistent in its back and forth even as the moon pulls it farther away from the shoreline. It will be back in its place soon enough by morning, just as Hinata said. 

* * *

If one were to ask him, Tooru is incredibly proud of how far he’s come. He’s a starting setter on CA San Juan, he’s proven himself over and over, and he now knows his place, is aware of his own footing, whether on the gym floor or on the sand. He looks up instead of down, no longer carried down by the weight of his own desperate breath. He’s come so far, and he hasn’t once looked back to nights full of overexerted serves. He wouldn’t take the last few years back for anything. The river had flowed with no hurry, and it is only a matter of time before he gets to the ocean eventually. 

The thing is — Tooru might be the closest to it he’s ever been, dreams made tangible from what once was wishful-thinking, but there is a slope in the water he finds himself slipping on, an absence he still hasn’t gotten used to. 

* * *

The stars shine through his hotel window that very same night, barely filtered through the curtains, gently cradling the shadows that try to invade the side of the bed Tooru lays on. There must be something to praise about Hinata’s persuasion skills, because he is contemplating calling Iwaizumi, finger poised ready to press the call button on his phone, a crude contact photo of his best friend displayed right above it, when Iwaizumi, by some musing of fate, calls with a story in one hand and an announcement on his lips. The phone buzzes in his hand, and he almost drops it in surprise. 

“Iwa-chan?” Tooru says, slowly. 

“Hey, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, voice cutting through the static, the same kind and rough he’s always worn. 

“Is everything alright? How did your tests go?” Tooru asks. He silently recounts the difference in their time zones, and figures it might be right after dinner for Iwaizumi. 

“They went fine for the most part. At least, I hope so,” Iwaizumi says. Then, never one to stall, he says, “Hey, do you remember the haunted house at the end of our street?” 

Tooru almost snorts. “How can I forget?” 

They had never fully ended up discovering that house in the end, even if Tooru had made it his summer mission. Every time he had tried to go inside, fear would get the best of his curiosity, and he’d walk away in shame with Iwaizumi stifling his laughter by his side. _Something by the window moved, Iwa-chan, didn’t you see it?_ he’d say. Iwaizumi never made fun of him for too long for Tooru to actually be hurt, but he always had the cheekiest smile. The house eventually got more rundown as the years passed by, dust collecting by nature’s design. Secretly, though, Tooru still believes that it was haunted. 

“Someone moved in months ago, apparently,” Iwaizumi explains. “And there haven’t been any complaints.”

“Is that why you called?” Tooru says. “To brag that it isn’t haunted?” 

“Maybe,” Iwaizumi says, and Tooru hasn’t seen him in person for close to a year, but he just knows what kind of face Iwaizumi is making — mouth curved upwards to the left, eyes crinkled in unspoken delight and cheekiness. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget how long it took you to psych yourself up only to run away screaming at the entrance.”

“I hate you so much,” Tooru groans, and brings an arm up to get his eyes. Still, he feels himself smiling at the memories. 

“It’s kind of nice when you think about it,” Iwaizumi says at the tail ends of a laugh, “that you can make a home out of anything.” 

Tooru thinks immediately, _you have a place in my heart no one else could ever have._ What he says instead is, “Are you getting sentimental on me, Iwa-chan?” 

“No, don’t be an idiot. I’m just pointing it out,” Iwaizumi says. “But I do have something other than that to tell you.” 

“What is it?” Tooru asks, sitting up. 

“I think I’m going to be an athletic trainer,” Iwaizumi says. “After graduating.”

“Iwa-chan, that’s so great!” Tooru exclaims, voice even more so pronounced in the stillness of his room. “It’s a great decision, that’s so cool!” 

“You think so?” Iwaizumi asks. 

“It suits you well,” Tooru tells him, sincere with every syllable. 

(“Sports medicine?” Tooru asks from where he sits on the bed. 

Iwaizumi sits on the floor, leaning his back against the bedside with his neck craned to look at his best friend. “Yeah. What do you think?” 

Tooru thinks of all the instances Iwaizumi had expressed concern over his knee injury, every time he’s brought him home, albeit sometimes quite forcibly, from a late night at the gym, remembers the milk bread he hands to Tooru when he knows that he’s skipped breakfast. Tooru’s watched his best friend make sure that all of their teammates cool down properly and get actual rest, helping them go past their limits without diving headfirst too fast, and buys them ramen after every game, win or lose. He recalls nights spent together in Tooru’s room in the quiet, with Tooru watching his favorite theory videos while Iwaizumi slumps next to him, reading another one of his health books. 

He thinks of careful fingers even when he knows sometimes Iwaizumi is scared he can be too rough, but always so gentle when it matters most. 

“Yeah, it sounds good. Really good, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, a full smile on his face. “You’re going to do great.” 

“I guess I have you to thank for that,” Iwaizumi tells him, and he sounds the tiniest bit bashful that Tooru’s heart stutters. 

“Why me?” 

Iwaizumi shrugs. “If I didn’t have to take care of you all the time, then I never would’ve realized that it’s what I want to do.” 

“You make me sound like a burden,” Tooru pouts, but there’s a flutter in his stomach as Iwaizumi looks at him, a storm breaking even with edges blurred in the restless afternoon. 

“Most of the time you are,” Iwaizumi says, and easily dodges the pillow Tooru throws at him. “But I don’t mind it.” 

Tooru almost says it, three traitorous words discovered at the beginnings of three summer ghosts, but he keeps it to himself and the water that rushes in.) 

“It’s not as flashy as a pro volleyball player, though,” Iwaizumi says. 

“But just as important!” Tooru insists, heading back to the present. “I can say that the most out of the both of us,” he says, tapping his knee absentmindedly. “Does anyone else know?”

“No,” Iwaizumi replies. “You’re the first one I told.”

“Oh,” is all Tooru says. To still be first, especially if it’s to Iwaizumi, after all this time, is a feeling he does not know how to tend. He’s spent too many days wondering how to even breathe when Iwaizumi is around, how to move swiftly as if it doesn't feel like rocks are jutting into his sides with every turn. 

“I’m still going to beat you, though, if we ever cross paths,” Iwaizumi says, tone determined. “So get ready.”

Tooru straightens, steadies himself as nerves rile themselves up from his fingertips all the way to his arms, the entire expanse of a setter’s pride, because this he knows. He is used to declarations of war. “I’d like to see you try.” 

They talk for a little longer, residues of a time long past compensating for all that they have lost to distance. Tooru needs to get up early tomorrow to meet with Hinata, but he can’t find it in himself to be bothered, not when Iwaizumi’s voice trickles into his ear stronger than any static. 

When Iwaizumi finally realizes the time and tells him to sleep, Tooru tells him one more thing before he bids his goodbye. “When we see each other again,” he says, because really, it’s been a long time coming, “there’s something I need to tell you.” 

_You have no idea how sure I am about you._

Iwaizumi must sense that it’s something too important to be said over a call, so he simply agrees. “I’ll see you soon, then. Take care, Oikawa.” 

“See you, Iwa-chan,” Tooru says, and the phone clicks the room into silence once more. He eyes the stars outside his window and permits in the quiet rush of waves down below, and thanks them for their certainty. 

Through the quiet, Hinata’s words ring in his ears, _the tide always comes back_ — and he thinks, maybe he and Iwaizumi really aren’t any different. 

* * *

To whoever has followed Tooru’s volleyball career, it is no secret that much like a river that travels to the ocean, he has always played among various shades of blue. First was Kitagawa Daiichi, a deep blue that spoke of a hurt he had churned into something lighter with Aoba Johsai’s aquamarine, and then he had adorned Club Athletico San Juan’s ocean cerulean hues, even if it was for a short while. Now, he wears the proud arctic blue of the Argentina National Team. He has been a king in his own right, and now he walks to center stage, to the ocean of the grandest kaleidoscope. He had worn the crown, and now he is fulfilling a promise. 

Later on, he is to go against the bright red of Japan. Quite interestingly enough, it is the very same boys of Miyagi he knows that are to wear them, with Iwaizumi standing guard. 

Tooru walks alongside his teammates, and lets the wave finally tip him over to the sea as he steps into the light of the grandest court. 

* * *

The whistle blows, and Tooru exhales hard enough to feel his shoulders weigh down the rush of adrenaline that claws in his hands. His teammates gather around and line up after the initial group clamor, but Tooru doesn’t take a single step as he looks for someone on the other side of the court. 

“Oikawa!” 

Tooru knows the feel of a volleyball in his hands almost as well as he knows the heart lines that drag up on his own palm, the countless calluses that decorate what once was smooth skin. He has reconciled himself with a rubber that always bounces back to him, leaving him with angry bruises and ghostly sores that haunt him in the morning. He’s held trophies before, glinting medals hanging around his neck, the roar of a crowd in his ears, the hand of a teammate on his back, the euphoria of winning coinciding with practiced adrenaline. He’s felt the trappings of a volleyball net, one divided into two, the fine sand of the beaches in Rio as the water meets his skin only to draw back again, the shiny cloth of a new Argentinian National Team jersey. 

But for all the things his hands have held, nothing compares to the press of Iwaizumi against him. 

Medals, he realizes, have never stood a chance against the weight of Iwaizumi’s hands around Tooru’s neck, not when there is nothing more important than their _together._ The arrival of a new jersey does not even come close to the touch of this boy he’s known forever, warm and calloused and so terrifically here. The tide really does come back as it always does, as Iwaizumi crosses the court, two sides finally made whole, and hugs him like they’re six years old again, like time has not passed at all. 

“Blue again?” Iwaizumi asks after they pull apart. He’s grinning wildly, and he looks at Tooru like he carries the sky, even if Tooru has always felt like the river that streams below. 

Tooru knows he’s smiling as big as Iwaizumi is. “It’s a good color on me, don’t you think?” 

Iwaizumi laughs, full and loud, and Tooru feels the sound sink all the way into his skin from the proximity. The world rights itself even more so, and Tooru is made aware that it was in need of shifting in the first place, one last surge before the rainstorm moves on to the next town over. Now that it has, it’s like a flame taking on new light. 

“Color doesn’t matter, it’s all you,” Iwaizumi says. And Tooru feels incredibly foolish for having worried at all, over something he should have known all this time. Because Iwaizumi looks at him and does not see the volleyball player, does not mind the color, does not see the jersey he wears as a tantamount to his worth, but he sees Tooru — conspiracy theories and milk bread and knee braces and determination and pride. Just like he always has. 

Whatever form Tooru takes, Iwaizumi will wade the waters. 

The person Tooru had fallen in love with all those years ago finally stands before him, now grown and sturdier, but still the kid who approached him with a wary look and a volleyball in front of an infamous haunted house, who is the only one who could have ever called Tooru weird and still hang out with him anyway. The one who keeps him steady even in the storm. 

“I did it,” Tooru whispers, and even amongst the roar of the crowd, he knows Iwaizumi hears him. “Promise fulfilled.” 

“Stupid, you were always the best,” Iwaizumi tells him, and he punches Tooru’s arm lightly. “Now, what was it that you wanted to tell me?” he asks. 

Tooru shakes his head, looking at both of their teams, now huddled in the corner and exchanging stories. Hinata spots him as Tooru glances at them and gives him an excited wave, eyes flickering to Iwaizumi, and quite impossibly, his smile grows even wider. Kageyama hovers next to him, bending down to hear what Hinata whispers in his ear. Hinata looks happier than he’s ever been, a crow taking flight. 

“Not now. Later?” Tooru says, squeezing Iwaizumi’s hand in his. 

“That’s a promise,” Iwaizumi says, fond smile never once leaving his face. Another one for a new adventure. One that, this time, they will face forward together. 

* * *

When Tooru finally tells his best friend he loves him, it’s only natural that Hajime says it back. 

The river always finds its way back home, after all. Everything else can follow after that. 

**Author's Note:**

> did japan win the olympics? argentina? who’s to say?
> 
> you can find me on tumblr [here](https://sunlitday.tumblr.com)! thank you for reading! :D


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